


Who Do Not Remember the Past

by missbecky



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Flashbacks, M/M, Young Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two days after he says good-bye to Bill for the last time, Jim Prideaux finds himself standing in front of a tailor shop on Savile Row. From there he becomes a Kingsman, a Merlin, and a mentor to one Harry Hart. </p><p>He couldn't save the man he loved from self-destruction; he can only hope it's not too late to save Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Do Not Remember the Past

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, using both book and movie canon. Knowledge of those things is not necessary to read this, but can only help. If you haven't read/seen either one, I highly recommend both. Young Harry, of course, is modeled after [Colin's performance in Another Country.](http://missbeckywrites.tumblr.com/post/114520154622/)
> 
> Title comes from the famous quote by George Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

_It's never easy to get the call saying an agent is down, the call that invariably precedes the command to assemble. Harry sits calmly enough, waiting for further news, but this is the first time Eggsy has had to deal with such a thing, and he is restless and anxious._

_"But he's… I mean… He's gonna be okay, ain't he?" Eggsy asks._

_It's not for Harry to say. He likes Percival and respects him; if the worst should happen, he will genuinely mourn for his lost friend._

_They sit on the couch, silence falling over them once more. They haven't turned on the television, and Eggsy's phone is silenced, so there will be no annoying group texts from his mates to interrupt their vigil._

_"Okay, so…" Eggsy shifts nervously beside him. "If he… What does that mean? Do we all have to propose someone to take his place? 'Cause I don't know anyone."_

_Harry very much doubts that, but he's not going to argue the point now. It would be too crass._

_"And I ain't askin' to be selfish, honest," Eggsy says, very earnest. "I just don't know what to do. Do we all have to propose someone? What happens if I can't find anyone? Am I gonna get in trouble?"_

_"If it becomes necessary, we will deal with it then," Harry says. He gives Eggsy a smile, not wanting to be seen as scolding. "Try not to think about it too much."_

_Eggsy sighs and settles in against him, leaning on his right shoulder. "Hard not to," he mumbles._

_Harry nods. He knows that feeling all too well._

_After only a few minutes, though, Eggsy stirs restlessly again. "So like." He sits up and looks at Harry with curiosity. "Who proposed you for Kingsman?"_

_Harry doesn't say anything. He knows the question is meant to be a distraction to take their mind off the agonising wait for news about Percival, but nonetheless it immediately seizes hold of him._

_He's been thinking about it ever since they got the call. Of course he has. He always does at times like this. It's a story he'll never know completely, no matter how much he might wish to. And it's a story he's never told anyone before._

_He looks over at Eggsy thoughtfully._

_Perhaps it's time someone heard it._

***********

Two days after he says good-bye to Bill Haydon for the last time, Jim Prideaux finds himself standing in front of a tailor shop on Savile Row.

He's not entirely sure why he came. He knows Smiley and the rest of the Circus will be looking for him after what he did, but there are better places to go to ground. Yet when he was considering where he could go, where they might not touch him, this was the first place that came to mind. He's dead as far as the Service is concerned, and fired on top of that, but after what he's done, they might very well change their mind. He needs somewhere he can lay low for a while.

He's only known about them for a few years, these tailors who midnight as spies. Competition, yes, but also something to be laughed at after a few drinks. Bill came here a few times to have a suit tailored, but also to see if he could spot any actionable intel on them. Bland's been here, too, at Bill's recommendation, although he was never in on the joke – only a select few of them at the Circus ever knew about this shop on Savile Row.

Jim doesn't know what to think. He's had an eye on the shop all day and seen nothing but well-dressed gentlemen coming and going. If any of them are spies, they've done an excellent job of hiding that fact.

It's getting late, though, and the shop will be closing soon. He needs to make a decision, and it has to be now.

A black car slowly cruises down the road. In a shop across the street, the lights go out.

Jim takes a deep breath, climbs the steps, and opens the door to Kingsman.

****

They know who he is, of course.

He meets with two of them in a magnificent dining room above the shop. It's only one floor up, but it might as well be Buckingham Palace for all the grandeur and money contained in this room. Jim sits at an enormous wooden table that he probably couldn't buy with his entire annual salary, and sips at the smoothest whisky he's ever tasted.

"What exactly is it that you're offering us?" asks the head of the agency. Jim doesn't know his real name, was introduced to him only as Arthur. The man is about Smiley's age, his hair a distinguished salt-and-pepper, his mustache neatly trimmed. He looks at Jim with mild interest, nothing else.

"Everything I know," Jim says. Which to be fair isn't much. He's been away too long, out of the loop, laying low at that school, pretending to be a good teacher.

"I will be frank with you," says the man called Arthur. "I very much doubt you can be of use to us. Your contacts are no longer valid, and both your age and your injury prevent you from being very effective in the field."

"I can offer you our tech," Jim says.

One of Arthur's eyebrows goes up, just slightly. "What do you mean by that?"

After that it's quite simple. By nine o'clock Jim Prideaux has a new job at Kingsman, working closely with the agents and their handlers, making sure all their equipment and weaponry is up to his –- and the Service's -– exacting standards.

It's only two days after that when an agent code-named Tristan says admiringly, "You're like a wizard with this stuff. Just call you Merlin."

The name sticks. Jim isn't sure about it at first, but after a while he decides he likes it.

****

He enjoys his new job. From handling Kingsman's tech, he branches out into handling their agents. He's good at it, he discovers. He's been in their shoes, out there in the field, working off instinct and sketchy information. He knows that decisions need to be made in a split second, that those decisions often spell life or death for someone.

The agents like him well enough, but more importantly, they trust him. He gets to know a few of them beyond the work, learning their real names and what they like to do when they aren't dressing up in bespoke suits and saving the world. A couple of them can't get past his more humble beginnings, though, and more than once he hears mocking laughter behind his back after he's left a room.

In that way, Kingsman is a lot like the Circus, full of a nasty undercurrent of classist attitudes and elitism. Most of the agents aren't too bad, but the worst offender by far is a little shit named Chester King. No one likes King, but he's very good at what he does. Everyone agrees that if he should live long enough, he'll most likely be the next Arthur. Jim can't argue with them, but he rather hopes he isn't still around once Chester King is in charge.

Mostly, though, he gets along just fine with everyone. He doesn't really think about the Circus anymore, or what it was like to have a network of people working for him. Occasionally he finds himself comparing Arthur to Control, or Chester King to that prick Percy Alleline, but on the whole, he's quite content where he is.

He spends the next several years at Kingsman, wearing tailored suits and slowly growing old, two things he never thought he'd do. When he turns fifty-eight the agents give him a birthday party and pay for him to go away on holiday. For three weeks Jim sleeps a lot, reads books under the sun, and runs along the beach at night. He returns to London suntanned and feeling more human than he has in a very long time.

A couple years after that he finally moves out of the flat Kingsman procured for him and buys himself a house in a quiet, well-off neighbourhood. He pays cash for it, too, and gets himself a nice car that he takes out every so often just to keep it running. He meets his neighbours and notes their cars and their daily routines and habits. He finds out which ones are genuinely nice, and which ones are posh pricks who wouldn't be so glad to have him there if they knew where he came from.

It's not a bad life. He keeps to himself mostly, but to be polite he has dinner with a few of the neighbours, lets himself be drawn into conversations over the box hedges separating lawns. Inevitably word gets out that he used to be a teacher.

It doesn't take long after that for the first person to come knocking at his door, requesting his help. Jim knows the man standing there, the way he knows the faces of everyone who lives here. Some minor -– very minor -- lord or some such. Full of himself and making it very clear that Jim knows his help is to be kept a secret.

"It's my son," says Lord Hart. "He's meant to be a doctor, but he lacks ambition. If he doesn't pull his grades up soon he'll never make it anywhere."

With some reluctance, Jim agrees to help. He arranges to meet the younger Hart on a Tuesday afternoon, says good-bye to the very minor lord, then spends the rest of the evening watching bad TV and sweating from the pain in his back.

He doesn't really think much about what he's agreed to, or why he did it. He doesn't think much about it at all, in fact.

****

Right away he realises his mistake. His meeting with Harry Hart is such a shock that his heart seizes up in his chest. In that first instant he swears he's looking at a ghost. In the young face in front of him he sees Bill Haydon as he was at Oxford, when the two of them had the whole world in front of them. The resemblance is uncanny, and not just physically. Harry Hart has the same passionate soul hidden behind carefully crafted walls of indifference and genteel etiquette. He walks with the same easy grace, so very confident in his own skin. And yet he's cautious in a way Bill never was, so that it's not until the end of their first tutoring session that Jim realises he's met another kindred soul.

And just like Bill, Harry Hart is quite up front about what he wants -- or doesn't want. "I hope you know I'm only doing this because my father wants me to," he says. With his wild shock of hair, he looks halfway to bolting already.

"I could say the same thing," Jim says mildly, and tells himself that Lord Hart wouldn't take too kindly to having the shit slapped out of his only son.

"I don't need a tutor," Harry says.

"So prove it," Jim says. "Bring your grades up and I'll go away."

Harry's jaw works. He crosses his arms, leans up against the wall like he's practising how to lounge with elegance, then stands up straight. He's restless energy in need of direction, youthful defiance at war with the rigid rules of his upbringing. Just watching him makes Jim feel old and tired.

"Sit down," he says wearily. "Tell me where you're at in your classes."

Harry doesn't sit, but as he paces the living room, he does at least provide an idea of what he's studying. There is an almost sullen lack of attention to detail, but it's enough for Jim to get a sense of what he's dealing with, both in terms of the coursework and his new student.

"It doesn't really matter," Harry says. He finally sits, heaving himself into an armchair as though all the weight of the world is on his broad shoulders. "My father has everything all planned out for me, whether I want it or not. Can't forget that I'm _noble_ , after all." He sneers the word.

Self-pity is not very becoming on him. "You're not noble," Jim says.

Harry looks taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're not noble," Jim says again. "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to one's former self."

Harry stares at him, much the way Bill once did when Jim first said it to him. He thinks of that day now, surly arguments and too many cups of tea, Bill annoyed with Britain's obsession with nobility and bloodlines. To put an end to the bickering, Jim had thrown the Hemingway quote at him, and Bill had just stared. _Did you really just quote a bloody_ American _at me?_

The significance of the quote is lost on Harry. He snaps, "I never said I was fucking superior to anyone." He swears with bravado, this boy on the verge of becoming a man.

Jim just sighs. It's going to be a long day.

****

Alone that night he drinks himself into a blind stupor. He doesn't want to think about Bill Haydon or Oxford or the too few nights they shared. He doesn't want to meet with Harry Hart again.

But two days later he's there right on time. 

****

Winter slides gradually into spring. Jim has a confrontation with Chester King, saves Percival's life with a single phone call, and loses the last of his hair. The old wound in his back never stops hurting, his doctor tells him he's a prime candidate for a heart attack, and orders him to stop drinking. For his birthday that year the Kingsman agents buy him a pointy black wizard hat. _For Our Merlin_ , the tag reads. Jim sets it on the corner of his desk and smiles when he looks at it. When he thinks about Bill now it's with regret mingled with gratitude for what they had. 

Most days he thinks he might be happy.

Beyond Savile Row, life goes on, too. He continues to tutor Harry Hart, but now when they get together it's not just to discuss Oliver Cromwell or French grammar. These debates often make Jim's head hurt, but they make him smile just as often. Harry is terribly smart, although he is also very lazy. Studying doesn't come easy to him, but once he finally makes up his mind to learn something, nothing will stop him. The trick is just to motivate him. So they sit and have tea and they talk about what changes are in store for England now that Margaret Thatcher has been elected. They discuss politics, World War I, the pros and cons of fox hunting, whether the middle class is better or worse off than they were ten years ago.

On this particular subject, Harry has a lot to say. In spite of his privileged upbringing, he claims to have nothing but disdain for the arrogance that seems to be inbred among the wealthy. In practise, though, he's not quite as liberal as he says he is; he's quick to judge someone and dismiss them as unworthy if they fail to meet some internal standard he expects of them. Still, there is hope for him, and Jim gently encourages him to see people as they are, not by what they're wearing or the school they attend.

He's rather surprised when his efforts pay off with an unexpected side effect. It's March by now, although it's still bitterly cold outside. They're sitting in the kitchen of Jim's house, the largest he's ever owned, although still nowhere near as grand as the one where Harry lives.

By now Harry's grades have improved and so has his attitude. He no longer bothers to hide the fact that he's attracted to men. And on this day he has a surprise of his own. "So why did you stop being a spy and become a tailor?"

Jim doesn't choke on his drink, but that's only because he's already swallowed it down. He sets his glass carefully on the table. "What makes you think I was a spy?"

"Because," Harry says simply. "You watch everyone. You go for these walks every night, but I don't think you care about exercise. You're checking out the neighbourhood. Whenever anyone goes on holiday or something changes, you're the first one to know about it. And you always sit facing the door. And I don't think you hurt your back skiing in Austria. I think you must have been shot or something."

Jim gazes at him calmly. He's spent months being tortured and interrogated by the best. He will not let a snotty seventeen year old boy break him. "And if I was?"

Harry shrugs. "I just wondered why you stopped."

"It was a long time ago," Jim says. A few months ago he would never have even said that much. But he knows who Harry is now, knows his mother was a Kingsman once. She was killed when her only son was six years old. Harry thinks she was hit by a drunk driver while she was out shopping. He never talks about her. The medal Kingsman gave him was probably lost years ago.

"I'm just a tailor now," Jim says. It's only a half-truth; he hasn't worked in the shop in several years. As Merlin, his time is too valuable to waste there.

"Is that why you live alone?" Harry asks. "Why you never fell in love and got married?"

"I didn't get married because I didn't want to," Jim lies. "And I did love someone once." He pauses just long enough for it mean something, then says, "He's gone now."

He doesn't know why he says it. He's never mentioned Bill to anyone, not like this. But the moment he says it, he's glad he did. It doesn't hurt like he thought it would. Or rather, it does hurt, but the pain is bearable. Sweet, even.

He's okay.

Harry's eyes light up. "I _knew_ it," he says fiercely. Then he recollects himself. "Shit. That was rude." His voice becomes stiff and formal, the voice of his father the Lord, the voice of the man he will be soon. "I apologise."

Jim just nods. He didn't take offence. He knows what it's like in that moment of revelation, to know that you aren't alone in the world.

"Will you tell me about it some time?" Harry asks.

He won't, not ever. What he and Bill had is private. With every passing year, there are fewer people around who know the truth, who remember that once upon a time they were known as "the inseparables." He doesn't mind. It's better this way.

But he can't say any of that to Harry. So instead Jim just says, "Pass your exam next week and we'll see."

Harry grins.

****

Three weeks after Harry has left school, Jim is called to Savile Row. He joins the other Kingsman agents for a solemn toast. He raises his glass and murmurs, "To Galahad," and drinks his brandy.

Arthur has aged badly in the six years since Jim became a member of Kingsman. There is a quiver in his voice as he announces that he intends to start the selection process for the new Galahad in two days. "I want each of you to propose a candidate," he says.

Jim knows instantly who he means to propose.

It takes him a day to work up to it, though. It will mean telling Harry the truth about his mother. And while he would like to think he has had a hand in guiding Harry out of adolescence and into adulthood, it's another thing entirely to take a young man and be responsible for turning him into a killer.

It's a difficult decision. He drinks heavily that night, ignoring the ache in his chest and the thudding behind his eyes. He tries to imagine Harry at Kingsman, wearing the pinstriped suit and carrying the umbrella that Jim has nicknamed the Rainmaker. When he closes his eyes, though, it's Bill he sees, Bill in his office at the Circus, barking orders into the phone with his feet propped up on his desk.

 _What is your dilemma?_ Bill asks him, a young voice out of memory, their first meeting at Oxford, the start of the terrible, long journey they made together over the years. Spies for their country, making their living off secrets, while harbouring dark ones of their own.

"I haven't got one," he says out loud. The words fall heavily into the silence of his kitchen. It's the answer he gave back then, but it was a lie. It's a lie today, too.

It's always a lie.

He thinks about the last time he saw Bill alive, save one. The night he came to deliver his warning. Even now he's not sure what he expected. They had not kissed, had not even touched. He had known from the moment Bill answered the door that he had made a mistake. But he had gone through with it anyway, the way he always did.

Because even then he had hoped for a different outcome. For a chance to change what seemed all but inevitable by that point.

As it turned out, they had never got that chance. But he has one now, with Harry.

It might be too late, he tells himself. But then, it might not be. Kingsman could be exactly what Harry Hart needs. It would give him purpose, and a legitimate reason to champion all those high-minded ideals he claims to hold so dear. Instead of latching onto the first ideology that strikes his fancy, he would have a clear path to follow.

It's the cost that worries Jim. It's those memories of Oxford, all those little what-ifs that nag at him when he least expects it. Ultimately Kingsman is no better than the Service, and in some ways it's worse. The secrecy is demanding, and the price is a heavy one. Becoming a Kingsman means no chance for a committed relationship with another human being. There will be no family, no children, no holidays at the seaside. Can he really do that to someone else, especially someone as young as Harry?

He drinks the bottle dry and is still no closer to knowing the right thing to do. He staggers up to his bedroom and collapses onto his bed, still fully dressed.

Sleep claims him immediately. 

He dreams of that last Christmas party at the Circus, singing that awful Russian song, blissfully unaware that all too soon he would do anything to get away from the sound of that language. It unfolds in his memory, the last time they were all together, the last time they were all innocent. Most of them, anyway.

He dreams about the smile Bill gave him that night. Like it's happening for the first time, he feels the sharp pain of heartbreak, of knowing that this is all they will ever be to each other now: friendly smiles from across the room.

He wakes up with the memory of a gunshot echoing in his ears and tears wet on his face. Angrily he dashes them away and makes himself sit up. His head is killing him and his stomach is churning, but he knows now what he has to do.

Left to his own devices, there is no telling where Harry Hart's passions will take him. Or what he will do because of them.

And Jim Prideaux cannot, will not, allow him to become another Bill Haydon. No matter the cost.

He crawls out of bed and takes a long, cold shower until he's shivering and his fingers are turning blue. He gets dressed and drinks two cups of coffee to finish sobering up. And later, over a long lunch at the Hart estate, he tells Harry about Kingsman.

Harry waits politely for him to finish, the way he has been taught, then says yes. He never hesitates.

****

As Merlin, Jim had a large role in developing the tests for the new recruits. He never really has any concerns about whether Harry will become the next Galahad. He knows Harry can pass all the tests.

The other agents are more doubtful. Just two months past his eighteenth birthday, Harry is the youngest recruit Kingsman has ever had. He has none of the background or skills that Kingsman normally looks for in a new agent. He is bold bordering on reckless, and his refusal to give in to the classism rampant in the agency is a form of snobbery in itself.

"Just wait and see," Jim says.

One by one the other recruits are winnowed out, until at last the only two left are Harry and a blond boy named Rupert. Jim takes them out in the field along with Tristan. The mission is a fairly simple one – prevent the assassination of Margaret Thatcher. Jim recalls afternoons over tea, books spread out on the table before them, engaged in heated debate with Harry over the future of their country under Thatcher's rule. It pleases his sense of irony that their first mission is this one.

In the end both Harry and Rupert have their weapons trained on the assassin. But Harry is the one who pulls the trigger, his expression set, his eyes cold. He has become the killer Jim always knew he could be.

He holds out his hand. "Welcome to Kingsman, Galahad."

****

One year later Harry is in Istanbul and Jim runs into Smiley at King's Cross.

As a spy, Jim doesn't believe that people "just happen" to meet. But in this case he thinks it might genuinely be a coincidence. Certainly Smiley's surprise seems real enough as their eyes meet across the crowded platform.

The train is approaching, but Jim forgets all about it. He walks slowly toward Smiley and the other man does the same. They meet in the middle and then just stand there looking at each other.

"Jim. You look good."

It's a lie. He's sixty-three years old. Beneath the pinstriped bespoke suit he is haggard and thin – and he feels it. The hand holding the bulletproof umbrella isn't as strong as it once was. The days when he could run for hours are long gone.

"George." He doesn't ask about the Circus. He doesn't want to know who's left, if the name Jim Prideaux is still known.

"We wondered where you'd gone," Smiley says. He looks much the same. Still the thick glasses, the same watchful eyes. Always watching, George Smiley.

Jim says nothing. The suit speaks for itself.

Smiley takes a breath. "I have something," he says. He reaches beneath his coat. Instinctively Jim tenses up, old habits kicking in, but Smiley merely comes up with a battered black wallet.

"We found it," Smiley says. He pauses delicately. "With his things." He digs a folded piece of paper out of the wallet and holds it out.

Jim takes it but doesn't unfold it. He knows what it is even without looking. The image in that photograph is forever imprinted in his memory.

It makes him angry to think of George Smiley possessing that photograph, maybe even looking at it from time to time. He doesn't know why it should bother him so much, but it does. "Why do you have it?" he asks harshly.

Smiley considers his answer for a long time. "To remind me," he finally says.

Jim stares at him for a long moment. He wants to ask what the fuck that means – but he also doesn't want to know. At last he just nods and turns around. He walks away without looking back, the bullet scar between his shoulder blades burning bright with pain.

That night he sits at his desk in the Kingsman manor, the wizard hat still sitting there on one corner, and he unfolds the picture.

He had gone looking for it after his return from Russia, still weak and recovering from what they had done to him. When he couldn't find it he had assumed someone from the Circus had taken it as evidence. It had never crossed his mind that Bill had taken it.

They're young and smiling in the photo, his arm thrown carelessly over Bill's shoulders. Bill is smiling for the camera, but Jim is smiling only for Bill. They look foolishly happy, too blinded by their own good fortune to see the darkness in the world around them.

Except Bill had seen it, even back then. His artist's eye hadn't let him _not_ see it.

_What is your dilemma?_

_I haven't got one._

_Then what are you doing here? If you haven't a dilemma, how did you get in?_

Jim sets the photograph down on the table next to the whiskey bottle and covers his face with one shaking hand. Sobs wrench from his chest, each one more painful than the last. He cries for those halcyon school days, for the young men they used to be, before betrayals and bullet scars and fond smiles at Christmas parties.

The pain in his chest gets worse and worse. By the time it radiates up to his neck and jaw and he realises what's happening, it's too late. He tries to get up so he can call for help, but his legs spill him to the floor.

Like on that cold day so long ago, Jim lies still and waits to die.

****

He wakes up in the Kingsman infirmary. An IV line is taped to his hand and a machine monitors his heart rate. Harry stands at the foot of his bed, hair tamed into a decorous side part that instantly ages him ten years. His suit is charcoal grey and torn at the shoulder seam.

"You bastard," Harry says. There is a tremor in his voice he hasn't yet learned how to control. "Don't you fucking die when I'm not here."

Jim smiles. He's helpless not to. He's loved Harry for almost for long as he's known him, and not just because being with him is a little like getting to be with Bill again. If he were forty years younger he might consider the possibilities, but he's not, and so he doesn't.

"Don't even think about doing that again," Harry warns. He walks around the bed, nineteen years old and already an accomplished spy and killer. All that passionate brilliance, all that reckless energy, that need to defy the world, has at last been channeled onto the right path. He is a gentleman, a true Kingsman, and most important of all, he is safe. No matter what happens in the years to come, Harry will never end up like Bill.

At least Jim can say he's done one good thing with his life.

****

He designs the glasses after that, working mostly from his bed, forbidden to return to full duty just yet. He's fully aware that they will be his last contribution to Kingsman, to the men who have saved him as often as he saved them.

It's Smiley who inspired him, of course. Smiley and his glasses and his watching.

Jim is adamant about the design of the glasses. They must be water-resistant, bulletproof, and shatterproof. He's certain the camera and communications technology they utilise will change in time -- one thing he's noticed over the years is that technology seems to be getting progressively smaller. But the basic engineering must remain the same. Someday one of his agents will stand under a sunny sky and face a madman. It's inevitable. Those glasses might be the only thing keeping that agent from dying from a gunshot to the face.

It takes a long time to get them just right, and by then Jim is back at work, cleared for duty and seething with impatience.

Harry is the first agent to take the glasses into the field. Jim leaves the lab and sits at his desk for the first time in days. It's a thrill beyond compare to watch the view onscreen change as Harry walks down the street. "How does it look, Merlin?"

Jim clears his throat around the sudden lump that forms there. "Very good, Galahad. Signal is strong."

He can't see Harry's face, but he can hear the smile in his voice. "Of course it is. You designed them."

****

Arthur dies in his sleep, quiet and peaceful. Unusual for any spy, no matter what agency he belongs to. The funeral is solemn and understated. Jim drinks too much at the wake at the Kingsman manor, and sleeps it off in one of the rooms meant for visiting agents.

By unanimous vote, Chester King is chosen as the new Arthur. His first command is to tell the Kingsman agents to propose candidates for the newly vacant position of Dagonet. Then he looks at Jim. "Not you, Merlin."

Jim takes a moment before answering. "Sir?"

"You are not an agent," King says, taking delight in pointing out the obvious. "As Merlin, you do not get to propose a candidate."

Jim nods stiffly. He can't pretend to be surprised; Harry and Chester King have always butted heads. Still, it stings. Reminds him that he's old now, rapidly reaching the end of his usefulness.

Afterward, Harry clasps him on the shoulder. "He's afraid of getting another me."

"The best agent we have," Jim says stoutly.

Harry smiles, his eyes alight in a way that reminds Jim poignantly of Bill Haydon. "Exactly," he says.

****

Tristan's candidate wins the job and becomes their new Dagonet. Harry goes to Paris, Bulgaria, the States. Jim refines the tech in the glasses, guides Lancelot to safety through a minefield in East Germany, and alone in his kitchen one night has another minor heart attack.

He doesn't tell anyone.

He dreams about the Christmas party again, but this time when he walks away in the dream, the floor turns to autumn leaves crunching beneath his feet, and there's a rifle slung over his shoulder. He wakes with the echo of the gunshot ringing in his ears and tears drying on his cheeks.

He used to think his last gift to Bill was mercy. Now he thinks it was actually forgiveness.

****

Harry goes to Brno for a mission. While he is gone, Jim paces the halls in between long sessions at his desk, watching and listening to everything Harry does. He is full of a quiet terror he can't tell anyone about. He refuses to give the task of handler over to anyone else, though. If anything is to go wrong, he wants to be the first one to know. He feels cold inside, numbly certain that something will happen to Harry. It's that city, that damn city, where the cobblestones are cold and the walls have eyes and ears. 

To his vague surprise, nothing goes wrong. Harry intercepts his target and takes the classified information that was meant for unfriendly eyes. He leaves the courier's body where it will be found in a week or so, destroys all evidence that he was ever there, and boards a plane for England.

Jim sinks back in his chair and rubs at his burning eyes. After two days of unbearable tension, he can at last relax.

"Well done, Galahad," he says. "As usual."

"Did you expect anything less?" Harry says. He's still wearing the glasses; right now the view is the interior of the Kingsman airplane.

"Of course not," Jim says.

"Go home and get some sleep," Harry says. "I'll see you when I get back."

Jim nods wearily. It's not a long flight to London, but Harry will need to debrief when he gets back. Time enough for him to go home and take a nap and a long shower, maybe grab something to eat before he has to be back here so he and Harry can talk about the mission.

He lets Arthur know that he's leaving and receives a curt dismissal in return. Biting his tongue, Jim heads for the underground shuttle that will take him to Savile Row.

He dozes on the ride there, then makes his way through the shop. It's almost dark out, and despite his exhaustion he lingers for a moment on the pavement, recalling that day he first stood here, debating with himself whether or not he was going to go in. It's been over eight years since that day, eight years since he truly left the Circus behind and became a Kingsman.

He has no regrets.

His house feels overheated, the rooms too small, the walls too close. He moves restlessly from the kitchen to the living room, unable to settle down enough to truly relax. He pours himself a drink and that helps a little, so he has another.

The bottle is almost empty when he finally sets it down and heads for the stairs. His head is spinning and he's sweating. He clings heavily to the bannister as he trudges up the steps.

As he sets his foot on the landing, hot pain knifes through his chest. He opens his mouth to cry out, but no sound emerges. His legs buckle and he falls, striking his head on the wall as he goes down.

Unable to move, he lies where he fell. His vision is blurred, but when he hears footsteps on the stairs above him, he blinks and struggles to focus. It's the last fading instinct of a spy, that last need to know what is happening around him, to make sense of the chaos.

"My other half," says Bill. He comes down the steps with the same grace that always set him apart from everyone else in the room, even when he was just standing still. He smiles. "Took you long enough."

Jim stands up and breathes in deep. It's quite incredible, the way he feels. He is young and strong again, like he could run for hours. Possibly he will, while Bill watches and sketches him under the morning light of the Oxford sun.

"Well, I'm here now," he says.

"So you are," Bill says. He smiles again and gestures at the path ahead of him. Very faintly, as though through a shimmering mist, Jim can see a flight of carpeted steps in a house, but they lead nowhere. At least, nowhere he wants to go.

Bill walks forward and Jim goes with him, inseparable once again.

**********

_"So who was it?"_

_Harry blinks slowly. "I'm sorry, what?" He has the same feeling he gets sometimes when he's been too long in a dark movie theatre, emerging into the bright daylight of reality. He has to struggle to leave the imagined behind and return to the real._

_Eggsy looks amused. "I asked who proposed you for Kingsman."_

_"Yes," Harry says. He remembers now. He had decided to tell Eggsy the story, but now he is not so sure._

_"Are you gonna tell me?" Eggsy asks._

_Harry hesitates a moment longer, then makes his decision. "A dear friend," he says. He's lost many people over the years, some more dear than others. Sometimes he can go for months without thinking of them. But when he does – and sooner or later he always does – he feels the grief of losing them all over again._

_"Yeah? How dear?" Eggsy shifts away a little bit, giving him a serious side-eye._

_He is joking, of course. Probably. Hopefully. All the same, Harry leans over and gives him a soft kiss. "Don't get any ideas. He was my tutor."_

_"Oh," Eggsy says. Then he frowns. "Wait. You had a tutor? But you're brilliant!"_

_"Yes, well," Harry says dryly, "I was also quite stupid. There was a time when I actually thought it was rather clever to_ not _be brilliant."_

_Eggsy frowns a little. "That's pretty fucking stupid," he agrees._

_"I told you," Harry says._

_"So he decided you was Kingsman material, yeah?" Eggsy pushes. Clearly he isn't satisfied with Harry's answer so far._

_"Yes," Harry says. "He had been there for years by then. He was our first Merlin, you know."_

_He remembers getting the news from Tristan over his glasses. He was back at HQ by then, preparing to meet with Arthur. He remembers staggering a little as though physically struck, having to stop and lean against the wall so he wouldn't fall. He remembers how the hallway had blurred around him as the tears came, swift and hot._

_He had met George Smiley at the funeral, walking up to him the moment it was over, wanting to know who this old man was who kept staring at him during the service. Smiley had begged his forgiveness, saying he looked like someone he used to work with. "It's rather remarkable, the resemblance."_

_"Tell me," Harry had said._

_They had talked for the rest of that long afternoon, sitting in a dark pub while rain poured down on the streets outside. Some of Jim's story he already had from Jim himself, bits and pieces painstakingly gathered together over time. Some of it Smiley told him that rainy afternoon._

_Some of it he can only imagine, can only guess at. And some things he will never know._

_Eggsy looks thoughtful, no doubt trying to imagine what Kingsman was like back then, intrigued by these glimpses of the past. "So who was he?"_

_"His name was Jim Prideaux," Harry says, "and he came to us from MI6. And I believe he saved my life."_


End file.
